Anchors Away
by Rivaini
Summary: A collection of 250 word drabbles. Written for Femslash100 prompts on DW. Mostly features Hawke/Isabela and other leading ladies.
1. Lock

_**Irons Bars**_

Prison cells aren't unfamiliar places to Isabela. She visits them often enough. Mostly for trivial things: bar fights, petty thievery, a little too much on her tab. Sometimes the visits are for others behind the bars - a conversation with a mother she knew who killed her husband in exchange for freedom; a villain who traded in slaves and lyrium and seeks redemption in the Maker's eyes; a woman, by any other name than Hawke, who stepped on too many toes in one evening and wasn't fast enough in her escape.

(They share a cell together now. It's not one of their brightest moments, Isabela knows. She loves it nonetheless.)

By now, she's seen every prison. They all have the same familiar, territorial design: thick iron bars for a door, a lone glassy window that's been warped by years of harsh summer heat - the Free Marches would just as easily kill one in the summer as they would the winter, she very well knows - and a cot attached to the wall. She could also swear there was a ball-and-chain at one point - but the musty cell they inhabit now only has a lame lot of misguided fools.

Isabela pulls a dull and useless shiv from her boot then and methodically uses it to scrape the sweat off her skin. It peals away shiny and clumpy, a result of too many days without a bath. Hawke watches her, looking bored, and flushes pleasantly when caught.

She only winks.


	2. Lost

_**Ocean Colors**_

It's been a long time since they've gone sailing like this. Riding the waves in a direction that leads to nowhere. The seagulls screaming over head and the mast creaking when the winds are strong. The smell of salt and brine is ever present and the swells come and then they go.

The peace it instills is a feeling Hawke hasn't known since she was a child. There are no darkspawn riding the waves, no villains who's arms reach so far; no Templars swing blades at her and no mages lose their minds. There is no corruption, no death, and only a single certainty out upon this open expanse of blue: this is an escape.

Hawke finds the feeling unwelcome at first. She sleeps with one eye open for the first week and sharpens her blades. Maybe she's just scared. Maybe she can't remember. She's always had a purpose for every pursuit. On the tides, she is lost. There's an empty, hollow feeling to this - and all the realizations in the world fall into the sky.

But then there's Isabela, who flies about the deck like some great bird. Her silver-streaked hair waves wildly and her eyes gleam an even richer gold than the faded jewelry 'round her neck. Hawke always lets herself be pulled to her feet and the shoes taken from her person, lets the kisses land upon her freckles and her shallow waxy cheeks.

They're older now, she knows, yet this love is always the same.


	3. Snapshot

_**Impressions**_

Portraits cost an arm and a leg. Hawke scrapes the money together from under her bed. No one ever thinks to ask her about her thievery. The family's kept together in oil and the sticky residue of paint even when she's alone.

It's one of the few things that survived the run from Lothering. Leandra had determinedly hidden it in her skirts. Hawke isn't sure whether to be thankful or sad that the canvas stands its ground among all the others. She takes it out of the chest in her room frequently, tracing the rough brushwork over the curve of her father's jaw, the smooth, eloquent lines that make her mother's smile. It's a time not lost on her, but Hawke feels the weight of the loss all the same. She still can't bring herself to hang it up with the rest. That seems too mundane for family. Or maybe she's still looking for the twins in the background.

She's sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace when the knock comes on her bedroom door. It swings open on smooth hinges, and she can tell from the serious look that Isabela had been given some kind of warning; at this, Hawke is thankful that no explanation is necessary.

The pirate's eyes are alight with something unrecognizable though. Mischief. Concern. Some fear? Her smile curves into a softer version of itself.

"A party takes two sweet-thing," she says simply. Hawke pats the rug.

She thinks she'd like another portrait.


	4. Push

_**Rocky Shores**_

Isabela was a pusher. She pushed because she knew that if you wanted the best, there was a need to pursue it. Riches didn't simply fall into one's lap; there was a chase that needed to occur, a pursuit, a conflict, a resolution. The ending could swing either way – and that was only half the thrill of it.

There would always be people later, she knew, who would be silently thankful for the shove they could not deliver upon themselves. Some days, she thought that was the only reason she pushed at all.

Isabela had always been good at getting what she wanted. It was others who struggled to match the chase in her.

...

Marian was a pusher. That meant there was always a lot of stalemates when it came to Isabela.

They argued constantly. Mostly over petty things: ale, men, the color of small-clothes. Sometimes, the arguments were heavier: morals, Bethany's absence, Marian's big empty mansion. Isabela always knew when she pushed too far by the way Marian's humor turned dark. Those were the days when she wondered if the chase was even worth it.

But then there were the evenings of drink and sex – _compromises_ – when Marian allowed herself to be pushed into bed, her clothes coaxed off with kisses and wordless, eager little sounds.

The back and forth motion of their push and shove relationship served them well. Marian supposed it was fitting then, when Kirkwall took its final blow, that they both escaped to the sea.


End file.
